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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Clyde Winters: [QB] [b]Origin of Ethio-Semitic[/b] The Semitic speaking people are native to Northeast Africa, they did not originate in Arabia. The Semitic languages are divided into four groups: North -east Semitic, Northwest Semitic, Southeast Semitic and Southwest Semitic. The Ethiopian Semitic languages belong to the Southeast Semitic subgroup. In ancient times modern Ethiopia and Somalia was called Punt. As a result we call the Semitic languages of Ethiopia: Puntite languages. In the Sumerian texts these Puntites were called Meluhhaites. The Puntites lived in the Eastern desert of Egypt and Arabia for many years and on the Horn of Africa. The earliest representatives of this group are depicted on the Ivory label of King Dan (Udimu) of the first Dynasty of Kemit. During the neolithic subpluvial the Red Sea area recieved more rainfall. This area was blanketed with vegetation and the people grew ensete, barley and dates. They also grazed sheep, goats and cattle. Arabia at this time was a vast savannah with marshes and lakes. What is now known as the Rub al-Khali or Empty Quarter, today, an arid mountainous area, was then well watered. The Cushitic speaking people of Ethiopia also appear to have had some representatives in Arabia during this period . The people of Punt lived in an area stretching from the Eastern desert of Egypt, eastward to the Red Sea, and Central Africa. these people spoke Puntite/Semitic languages. This group of Africoids lived in the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea Hills. Whereas most Africans are clean shaven the Puntites preferred to wear beards. The boats of these Easterners are found engraved at prehistoric sites in Mesopotamia. In the Egyptian records the standard of the Easterners was the Set animal. The Egyptian traditions tell us that there was a struggle between Set and Horus which took place in Nubia. This story indicates that in ancient times Semitic-speaking people formerly lived in Nubia; this explains the Egyptian identification of Punt or Pwene as "the land of the gods". (Ullendorf 1973) The Egyptians called the people of Punt Kenbetu. In the ancient literature of Kemit (Egypt) and Mesopotamia, Punt was recognized as a sea power. From ports along the Red Sea, the people of Punt traded with of Kemit, Arabia, West Asia and Mesopotamia. Modern Ethiopia is part of the land known to the Egyptians "the lands of the gods". The inhabitants of Punt, on the other hand called their country Arwe. It was from here that the Semitic speaking nations moved northward into Arabia and Mesopotamia. The Kemites allude to the Arwe Kingdom in a short story which tells how a good natured serpent of great size speaks to a ship wrecked Egyptian whose life he saved: "I am the Prince of Punt...But it shall happen when[thou] art parted from this place ,that never shalt thou behold this island more, for it will become water...."(Doresse 1971, p.17) This "good natured serpent" may refer to the King-Serpent that ruled Punt according to Ethiopian traditions. The ships of Punt were very large, as early as 2500 B.C., they had ships with 60 oars. In the records of Sumer-Akkad there are frequent passages referring to the large boats of Punt, which they called Meluhha . The ships of Meluhha made many voyages to Mesopotamia. Meluhha, included the area from Nubia eastward to the coast of the Red Sea. This view is supported by the discovery of C-Group pottery usually associated with Nubia, found in excavated sites in Eritrea. (Zayed 1981, p.142) The Meluhhaites were known as the "black men" to the Sumerians .The Akkadians called them "the Meluhhaites, the men of the Black land". They sold many products including metals and precious stones to the people of Mesopotamia.(Kramer 1978, pp. 76-80) There were many Egyptian contacts with Punt. According to Herodotus, the Kemite Pharoah Sestrotris carried his conquest as far as the Red Sea, where he erected a stele at Deire. We have evidence of Egyptian expeditions to Punt sent by Pepi II in 2400 B.C.,and Mentuholep IV to bring back rare products from ancient Punt. Under Mentuholep V, the vizier Amenemhet established a port near Safaga to insure regular trade with Punt. The most famous voyage to Punt was undertaken by Queen Hatshepsut (c. 1520-1484), details of her mission are depicted on the walls of her temple at Deir el Bahri. (Gardiner 1978, p.78) Many ports in modern Ethiopia have been used for millennia. The inscriptions of Tuthmosis III refer to such places as Outculit, Hamasu and Tekaru; these names suggest the modern Ethiopian cities of Adulis, Hamasu and Tigre. (Doresse 1971, p.17) The Egyptians/Kemites made it clear that Punt controlled both sides of the Red Sea. (Budge 1959, p.53, n.1) In the Kemite inscription the Hymn of Ra, we read "The land of Punt is established [to give] the perfumes which thou smellest with thy nostrils".(Budge 1959, p.149) Stuart Munro-Hay noted that: "One extremely interesting Egyptian record from an 18th Dynasty tomb at Thebes actually shows Puntite trading boats or rafts with triangular sails ( Save-Soderbergh 1946, p.24) for transporting the products of Punt, indicating that the commerce was not exclusively Egyptian- carried, and that local Red Sea peoples were already seafaring...." In Ethiopia there were three great empires Punt-Arwe, the Da'mot or Di'amat Kingdom and Axum. The first kingdom of Ethiopia was founded by the Habesha or Habeshat who were first mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, in connection with the Land of Punt. The Punt empire was made up of people speaking diverse languages. The culture bearers may have been the Tigrinya speakers who call their language Habesha, i.e., Abyssinian par excellence. (Doresse 1971) The term Habesha seems to represent an old name for Abyssinia (the ancient name for modern- day Ethiopia) and may be connected with the Amharic word washa "a cave or cavern". The Puntite languages are characterized by a basic vocabulary, a system of roots and vowel patterns and the formation of derived verbs by prefixes. The South Arabian languages: Sabaean, Minaean and Hadramautic, are slightly different from modern South Arabic, but analogous to the Ethiopian languages. This represents the influence of the Jectanid tribes on South Arabic. It is clear that the Proto-Puntite speakers lived in Africa. Wolf Leslau (1951,1957) has made it clear that Ethiopic and South Arabic form a dialectical unity. Dialectical unity means that two or more languages form a unified dialect. According to Haupt, in 1878, Akkadian , Minaean and Ethiopic all belong to the same group of Semitic languages, even though they are separated in time and by great geographical distance. This is surprising considering the fact that Ethiopic and Akkadian are separated by many hundreds of years. The best example of this unity is the presence of[b] shared archaicism [/b].(Leslau 1951) The linguistic feature of shared archaicism is the appearance of the vowel after the first consonant of the imperfect. (Hertzron & Bender 1976, p.23) For example, one of the most outstanding features of Puntite, is the presence of a vowel following the first consonant in the verb form known as the imperfect, e.g., yi quattul (using the hypothetical verb consonants q-t-l, yi is the person marking prefix) or yi k'ettl 'he kills'. In Southwest Semitic the form of the perfect is yu qtul-u . Here we have the same hypothetical q-t-l form, but there is no vowel following the first consonant of the verb root. This results from the fact that in Black African languages we rarely, if at all find words formed with double consonants. The fact that Southeast Semitic has shared archaicism with Puntite shows that at the time the Akkadians and Ethiopic speakers separated these groups had dialectical unity. The lack of this trait in Arabic and Hebrew shows that they have been influenced by the Indo-European speakers who invaded Palestine and Arabia between 1300 B.C. and 900 B.C. Semitic verb root [list] [*]Akkadian Ethiopic/S. Arabian kl 'to be dark' ekelu Soqotri okil 'to cover' mr 'to see' amaru Geez ammara;Tigre amara br 'to catch' baru b'r dgh 'remove' daqu Geez dagba 'to perforate' kdn 'to protect' kidin Tigre kadna [/list] Clearly Black African language forms the base of most Semitic words. Diop (1978,p.113) recognized that in relation to Arabic words, once the first consonant was suppressed, there is often an African root. This phenomenon was also recognized by Wiener (1922, v.III) who believed that many African words were of Arabic origin. The Cushitic substratum has strongly influenced the phonology, morphology, syntax and vocabulary of the Puntite languages. [list] [*]Cushitic English Semitic Saho la wild cow *la-at Samoli la id. id. [/list] This supports the view of I.M. Diakonoff that the Semitic speakers and A-Group lived in close proximity in ancient times. The evidence discussed above makes it clear that Arabia, which was occupied in neolithic times by the Anu, was probably not the original homeland of the Semitic speakers. Moden Ethiopians originated in Africa, not Arabia. . [/QB][/QUOTE]
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